To care or not to care
by Why not
Summary: Vegeta and baby Trunks are home alone while Vegeta is thinking about his family and his life in general.


Disclaimer: I am Akira Toriyami, which means I own Dragonball Z so I can make the   
characters do whatever I want. Oh no, wait. I'm just a poor college student with   
too much free time on her hands. I don't own Dragonball Z.  
  
Author's notes: Just a little piece of fluff. I've had this idea in my head for   
days, and the only way to get rid of it was writing it all down. I'm wondering if   
anyone knows where I could find a beta reader? I'm currently working on a story   
that's getting longer and longer (36 pages in Microsoft Word as we speak, and it's   
nowhere near the end yet!), and I really need a beta. Let me know if you'd be   
willing to, OK? Well, enough of my ramblings, on to the story!  
  
Summary: Vegeta and baby Trunks are home alone while Vegeta is thinking about his   
family and his life.  
  
  
  
To care or not to care  
  
  
  
It's late when I finally decide to stop training in the gravity room. I'm going to   
grab a quick snack before I go to bed. When I enter the kitchen I can hear the boy   
crying, upstairs in his room. The woman and her parents have gone to attend the   
annual Satan city Science convention, so there's no one else here. This time she   
didn't even ask me to baby-sit, she just installed a robot that supposedly takes   
care of his every need. I shrug (why should I care if the brat is crying?) and   
start making one of my favourite peanut butter-strawberry-jelly-and-cheese   
sandwiches. Before you know it it's vanished down my throat. After devouring   
everything left in the fridge, I've finally had enough. The woman is going to bitch   
at me for eating everything but I don't care. I turn the lights off and go upstairs   
to have a shower before I go to bed.  
  
The boy is still crying. I find myself worrying about his well-being, there is   
only so much a robot can do… No, I will not think like that. The brat is the new   
prince of all Saiyans, he is already strong now and I know he will be strong when   
he grows up, he doesn't need anyone, shouldn't need anyone. Just like his father.  
  
The shower makes so much noise I can't hear anything else than the steamy hot water   
falling down, massaging my sore muscles and washing away the sweat and filth that   
had gathered on me after training for five hours straight. When I come out of the   
shower I realise I forgot to take some clean clothes with me, so I drape the towel   
around my waist and go to my room. On my way there I pass Trunk's room. He is still   
crying, even louder that before. Maybe I should just take a quick peek and make   
sure there's nothing wrong. The woman would kill me (or at least make a pathetic   
attempt at killing me) if something happened to the boy, but if she notices I've   
checked on him she will think that I care, which I don't. I just need to make   
sure the boy is well.  
  
  
When I enter the room I disable both the robot and the security camera with a very   
small well-aimed ki beam. The woman is used to repairing robots that were ki-  
blasted, hopefully she won't realise the damage was caused by a small blast. I   
don't want her to know I've been here. I look at my son. His little face is red   
and swollen, his fists are clenched but otherwise he seems fine. I wince at the   
volume of his screams. Definitely his mother's son.  
  
He has noticed someone has come in. The angry crying subsides into soft sobs and   
he turns his head in my direction. I approach the crib and look at him. He looks   
like me, besides for the purple hair that is. All Vegeta's look alike.  
  
Well, the boy is fine. I turn around and start to move away. He starts to cry   
again, but stops when I stop at the door. I come back to him and say: "What's   
with you, brat? Afraid to be alone?"   
  
A feeling I'm certainly familiar with. My earliest memory is of crying for what   
seemed like ages, but no one ever came to see if I was all right. I stopped crying   
altogether when I was two years old. Maybe things would have been different if my   
mother hadn't died while giving birth to me. But father would not, could not show   
me affection. To become king, the prince would have to kill his father.   
  
The boy gurgles and waves his teddy bear in my direction. He reaches out his other   
hand and involuntarily I extend my arms to pick him up. I uncomfortably hold him   
at arms length. He smiles at me, drops his teddy and makes baby talk. I hold him   
closer to me, like I have seen the woman do before. He grabs my hair and tugs it,   
so hard it actually hurts. He is a very strong baby, and it makes me proud to know   
he will become a super Saiyan warrior when he grows up. I grimace and try to make   
him let go. "Ga ga!" he screams excitedly, grinning like he's having the time of   
his life. He's drooling on my bare chest, but it doesn't bother me. I sort of like   
holding him. He's the second person in my life to trust me completely (the other   
one being his mother), and it feels good.  
  
Feh, I have become weak and soft-hearted. Next thing you know I'll be telling the   
woman I love her. All right, the boy is fine. I can leave now and go to bed. For   
some reason I don't do that, I keep standing there, holding my son.  
  
Caring for anyone else but yourself gives one unacceptable weak spots, easily   
exploited by your enemies. My father would not approve of me now. Not only did I   
take a frail non-Saiyan for a mate, I actually care for my son who will try to   
kill me when he's full grown. Who SHOULD try to kill me, anyway. If the boy's   
anything like his mother he won't have the nerve to. But if he would fight me,   
would I try to kill him? I already know the answer: I wouldn't. I know my father   
would have killed me if the moment would have come. After all, he gave me away to   
Freeza, killing me would have been more merciful.  
  
((Author's note: Vegeta doesn't know his father tried to get him back and kill   
Freeza, does he? I can't remember. Well, in this story he doesn't know.))  
  
Then again, why would the boy need to kill me? Vegeta-sei is gone, and it will   
never come back, not even with the dragonballs. Me and Kakarott are the only two   
full-blooded Saiyans left, when we die the Saiyan race will be extinct. My father   
was the last King of the Saiyans.  
  
I stay with my son, holding him in my arms until I can hear them all come back. I   
carefully place him back in his crib. He doesn't even notice because he's fast   
asleep. He is to young to remember any of this, he won't remember my moment of   
weakness. Crazy as it may sound, I'm actually starting to care for him. That's   
probably why my father never spend any time with me besides when he was training   
me. It's hard to raise your son to kill you when he knows you care for him. I   
slip out of his room when I can hear someone coming up the stairs.   
  
I quickly walk into the room Bulma and I share. By the sounds of the footsteps I   
can hear it's the woman coming up the stairs. I can hear her open the door to   
Trunk's room, and seconds later she comes out again, now she goes to our room.  
  
She walks up behind me and puts her arms around me. "I missed you," she whispers   
in my ear, and I realise that I have missed her too. She brings warmth in my life,   
she has born me a son, and for some reason beyond my grasp she loves me. I turn   
around, lift her off the ground and say, just before I kiss her: "I missed you too."  
  
Living on Earth isn't that bad after all.  
  
The end  
  
So, did you like it? Should I do another one with Bra instead of Trunks? Let me   
know!   
  
  
  
  



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